Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The more they sleep...

It's been an interesting week! Tye is sleeping more than she has since she was a newborn. I believe she's growing, as she's also had days when she seemed to want to nurse nonstop. But I can't help wondering if we've just finally adopted a schedule that is allowing her to sleep better, and therefore, sleep more. I keep thinking of a comment another mom made that "The more children sleep... the more they sleep!" Her point was that if you put your kids to bed an hour late hoping they'll sleep in an hour later, they often wake earlier; but if you put them to bed earlier, they actually sleep in later.

I figured out recently that when Tye wakes at 7:30-8 for her feeding, if I nurse her back to sleep, she'll sleep another hour or two, putting her waking time at 9 or 10 am. Even when she sleeps in, she still takes her morning nap about two hours after she wakes. Now that we've established a well-rested morning, Tye is also taking longer afternoon naps and falling asleep earlier- about 8:30 or 9 pm. It's been really amazing how much Tye is sleeping. She's either growing full-speed or she was sleep deprived for a while there. I just keep thinking of that mom's advice. "The more children sleep... the more they sleep." It's working for us!

5 comments:

SO true! It is so hard to wrap your head around because it doesn't really make sense, but it works like a charm! And, it continues to be true! After our crazy holiday travels, Jackson started to get back on track once we started putting him to bed at 6! Yikes! Good luck with the good sleeping :)

We had a similar experience. When my daughter hit about 4 months she just started sleeping better during the day and started taking really long 2 hour naps. I couldn't believe it. She started putting more weight on as well. It was nothing I did, just her personal development schedule. Even now, a long daytime nap often precedes a more settled night-time sleep.

I've read that when a tired baby doesn't sleep, cortisol levels rise in order to help keep baby awake. Levels stay high for 12+ hours, during which time baby won't sleep well. This would explain the whole process... although I couldn't find the article that explained that when I was writing this. That, and mommy brain totally made me forget to mention it in the post, haha!

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About Me

Hi! I'm Em, Mama to Tye and Etta and wife to Tyler. Mama Em is where I write about my life and my interests including instinctual/ connected/ attachment parenting, breastfeeding, natural and sustainable living, Elimination Communication (EC), babywearing, and growing my family. You can email me at MamaEm14@gmail.com.